Re: Verse reading–1 Timothy 3:1-13 (day three)
“For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?”
If we teach forgiveness and thanksgiving and honesty and love in our church meetings, but we do not seek to use those words to shape the most basic fellowship we know—the home—we have turned our backs on the primary domain of human spiritual formation. Perhaps we could replace the question, “What will the people at church think?” with “What will the people at home think?”
Author: Bryan Richardson
Bryan Richardson is the Associate Pastor for Counseling and Pastoral Ministries at FBCSA.
Calibrate
Re: Verse reading – 1 Timothy 1:1-19 (day three)
“The goal of this command is love.”
Paul calibrated these instructions to the baseline of love–not power, not social influence, not even more “acceptable” standards such as doctrinal purity. Paul echoes here what he revealed to the Corinthians: The most noble aspirations and accomplishments, unless they spring from love, will evaporate without a trace. If the church will ever speak with power and influence, if it will ever gain a hearing for correct doctrine, it will do so only by leading its people to become the kinds of persons who love–who “will the good for the other,” which is the definition of love. For Paul, love wasn’t a good way to get the job of church growth done; love was the job. Are you becoming the kind of person who wills the good for the other above all else?
Hear
Re: Verse reading—Ephesians 5:21-6:9 (day three)
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”
“Household codes” were a common feature of ancient writings on society. Paul simply re-frames the code in a Christian context, grounding it in Christ’s person. So he wasn’t writing provocatively. Any controversy comes from the ink spilled and breath spent attempting to excuse Paul, or to re-interpret him for modern ears, or to save him from himself, or to give up on him altogether. But in our rush to defend our hard-won enlightenment, we fail to do what is necessary: Sit quietly and listen to the word of God as penned by Paul. The harshness of the words as they fall on our ears has more to do with our resistance to the shaping power of the Bible than it does with any sophistication we think we have gained by living in these times.
Wake
Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 4:17-5:20 (day three)
“Wake up, sleeper.” Sleep is good for a body. But we also use sleep and dreaming as a metaphor for a state of unpreparedness or oblivion: “asleep at the wheel”; “snooze you lose”; “pipe dreams”. We can’t carry the weight of the world, so we try to sleep it off. We can’t accomplish our deepest longings, so we just dream about them. We cannot know what is real, what is true, what is a treasure, what matters, what lasts, what lives, until we wake up. And we will not wake up until we pay attention to Jesus Christ as the one and only person who can teach us how to live his kind of life.
Grow
Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 4:1-16 (day three)
“Then we will no longer be infants.” Our destiny is to live with one another as fully capable human beings in a good universe sustained by the living God. If we refuse to live with one another now, though, we will not progress beyond infancy of character. The Bible talks of a future of reigning with God, but without maturity, that will never happen. And without one another, maturity will not take hold. All of the characteristics of a godly life are characteristics that take shape only in community: We can’t love in isolation; we can’t exercise patience without someone to wait on; we can’t live humbly alone; we can’t bear another’s burden when no one is around. It is no wonder that the second-greatest command after the love of God is the love of neighbor as oneself. Our future depends on it.
Apology
Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 3 (Day Three)
“Through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The church will reveal God’s wisdom to the entire universe only as it loves. Here’s Francis Schaeffer: “The final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.” And what is love? It is to will the good for another. How do we learn to do that? We get to know Jesus, observing how he did that, and letting his life become ours. Will we love? It’s the only way the gospel will make its way into the hearts of men.
Near
Re: Verse reading – Ephesians 2:11-22 (day three)
“You are no longer foreigners and strangers.” The reality of God’s nearness keeps repeating throughout scripture: “God with us;” “Here are my mother and my brothers;” “The word is near you.” This nearness involves God’s drawing near us as well as God’s drawing us near one another. When God said “It is not good for the man to be alone,” he spoke the truth about a particular instance, and the truth about the entire human race at all times. It seems as if fellowship with others is but one of many good ideas about Christianity, but it is only in the community of God’s people—when you draw near to others—that you will draw nearest to God.
Human
Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 2:1-10 (day three)
“God raised us up with Christ.” When God raised Jesus from the dead, he did not raise a ghost, or a zombie, or a metaphor. He raised a human being—a divine human being, to be sure, but a human being nonetheless. That was new. God’s power had raised the dead before, but never to life everlasting in a renewed physical body. There is now a way for human beings to live as human beings—that is, beings with both a physical body and a spirit—forever. Jesus was the first. And because God the Son lives forever as a resurrected human being, so can all of us who count on Christ. When God raised Jesus, he raised the possibility of eternal life for the entire human race.
Enough
Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 1 (day three)
“…the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” We live in the fear that everything is a zero sum game: Whatever we give away means that much less for ourselves–be it money, possessions, or affection. The concept of “shortage” doesn’t have a place in the economy of God, though. The universe he has made, and the community he has birthed, knows nothing of scarcity. One of the results of taking seriously his lavishness is that we, too, become people who lavish what we have on one another without fearing that we will be left with nothing.
Actuality
Re: Verse reading–Isaiah 6:1-8; Revelation 4:1-11 (Day Three)
“The whole earth is full of his glory.” In one sense, the worship of God means seeing things as they actually are. The vision that the prophets in the Old Testament had in common reflected this understanding: “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Elisha prayed for his servant: “‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” If we would worship God, we must be convinced of the reality of his reign. Perhaps a prelude to worship is this prayer: Open my eyes, Lord.